See also:1001 Inventions BookWhat do coffee beans, torpedoes, surgical scalpels, arches and observatories all have in common? Were Leonardo da Vinci’s flight ideas originals? Who devised the casing for pill capsules and where did Fibonacci learn to flex his mathematical fingers?All these answers can be found here in ‘1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World’.

A golden age of civilization, from 600 and 1600 CE, will unfold, becausemedieval Muslims were trailblazers in fields as diverse as medicine and mechanics, cartography and chemistry, education and engineering, architecture and astronomy.

No area was too obscure to miss the scrutiny of enquiry backed up by rigid scientific experimentation.

"This glorious book overflows with the great ideas of the Muslim middle ages. From al-Jazari and his elegant clocks and al-Kindi and Ibn al-Haitham with their revolutionary optical theories, experiments, and books, to the astronomers who navigated across the desert by the stars, and the map-makers who put north at the bottom, every page is a mine of joyous information. There are even recipes to try out, and everything is beautifully illustrated. I wish I had had this book fifty years ago." says Adam Hart-Davis; Photographer, Writer and TV Science Presenter of BBC Series ‘What the Ancients Did for Us’.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq — The tiny Filipino woman’s hands trembled. She was in hiding, fearing capture at any moment.

She and a friend had come to Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish north as guest workers six months earlier. Now they worried they would be forcibly returned to Erbil, where they had been locked in a house for a month and made to work for free, they said, after their passports, cellphones and plane tickets were taken away.

The two had escaped by begging their captor to let them attend church, then making contact with other Filipino workers, who spirited them away.

Thousands of foreign workers have come to the Kurdish districts in the last three years, a huge turnaround for a place that had hardly any before, making it one of the fastest-growing Middle Eastern destinations for the world’s impoverished. They come from Ethiopia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Somalia, supporting an economic boom here that is transforming Kurdish society.

But nearly all foreign workers interviewed over a two-week period here said they had been deceived by unscrupulous agents who arrange the journeys. Unable to communicate, some arrive not knowing what country they are in. Once here, their passports are seized by their employment agencies, and they are unable to go home.

Some are satisfied with their decision to come here, but agents’ fees are high, often as much as two years’ wages. To come up with the money, many borrow at high interest rates and find that their wages are equal only to the interest. In essence, they say, they end up working for free.

While war rages to the south, mile after mile of new buildings are rising here, and wages for Kurds have risen sevenfold since 2003. Billions of dollars in investment are flowing in from Turkey and the United States, and large-scale oil exploration has just begun.

For the Kurds — guest workers themselves in Europe for generations — the newly arrived Asians and Africans are met with ambivalence. There are too few Kurds to take all the low-paying menial jobs, and many are uncomfortable hiring local Arabs, given the longstanding animosity between the groups.

Foreign women are integral to another transformation. As in some wealthy Persian Gulf states, the traditional Kurdish lifestyle is adopting some European ways: the rich and powerful want live-in maids, nightclubs need non-Muslim women to serve alcohol and men want intimate relationships before marriage — all roles largely forbidden for Kurdish women.

Importing such workers relies on a far-reaching network of recruiters in poor countries, and for most of the 150 Bangladeshis cleaning the streets here, the journey to Kurdistan began at 5 Bonany Road in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the headquarters of the Travel Mix agency.

“They said at the agency that I would make $300 a month and work as a waiter in a restaurant,” said Tufazil Hussan. He said that he took out a $3,000 loan with monthly interest of $150 to pay the agency, but that upon his arrival his passport was taken and he was put to work sweeping the streets seven days a week for $155 a month.

Optimistic, Mr. Hussan, 30, thinks he will soon get a better-paying job; other Bangladeshis say he will probably sweep the streets until the end of his three-year contract, then go home with little or nothing.

His supervisor, Abdul Khadar, is not much better off. A farmer from Tangai, Bangladesh, he makes $185 a month. Mr. Khadar said he borrowed $4,000 to pay Travel Mix. He estimates that for his first two years in Kurdistan, he will work only to pay off his loan.

For the city, the guest workers fill a manpower shortage while saving money. “We need 1,500 cleaners; we have 350,” said Razgar Ahmed Hussein, Sulaimaniya’s director of cleaning operations. “I never wanted to bring foreign workers to this city, but we had no other option. Kurds do not want the jobs.”

The city pays the local Lion Gate agency $325 per month for each cleaner. “The company takes more than half of that,” Mr. Hussein said. “It’s not a fair arrangement. Groups of Bangladeshis have tried to run away to Turkey. If you pay them what they need, they won’t run away. Three months ago the situation was so bad, they were living in a garage, their food was so little. They were begging for money in the street.”

Lion Gate officials said conditions had never been bad and were getting better. “We pay for the workers’ housing, food, electricity and plane tickets,” said Nizar Mustafa Chawjwan, director of the company’s Sulaimaniya office. “We take care of the workers’ health, and we have brought a cook from Bangladesh for them.”

As for allegations that Lion Gate business partners in Bangladesh cheated workers, Mr. Chawjwan said, “If Bangladeshi agents take money from them, we don’t know anything about the deals they make over there.”

Nisha Varia, an investigator with Human Rights Watch, said the combination of unscrupulous brokers in the workers’ home countries and labor practices in Kurdistan left the workers with few options.

“Each side denies that it knows what other is doing,” she said. “In reality, they are much more interconnected than that. They are dong business together, and that leads to these recruiting fees and debts, and puts the workers at risk of forced labor.”

Mr. Chawjwan argued that the wages workers got were higher than those in the Persian Gulf, and that his company had good reason to hold the workers’ passports. “We keep the passports to stop them from running away to Turkey,” he said. “We spend a lot of money to bring each one here.”

But Ms. Varia rejected that argument. “It is a violation of international law to take someone’s passport,” she said. “You don’t own a person because they signed a contract.”

Guest workers are a new phenomenon here, and government workers acknowledge that there is no agency to monitor their labor conditions.

An agent who has brought in hundreds of Asian and African women in their teens and early 20s said that some had complained of unwanted sexual advances. She told of one client who expressed interest in an exceptionally beautiful young Ethiopian woman, offering extra money for her. He disappeared with the woman for several months, then inexplicably sent her home at his own expense. “I suspect he got her pregnant,” the agency manager said, insisting on anonymity.

Another Filipino, who gave her name only as Kikay for fear of retribution from her employer, said she and other young women came expecting $600 a month to work in restaurants in Kurdistan, which they were told was near Greece.

“In the Philippines, they said we get the contract in Dubai, then in Dubai the agent said the contract is at the airport,” she said. “At the airport, they grab our luggage and push it through the X-ray machine, then they start shouting at us, ‘Go, go, your contract in Kurdistan.’ We are confused. We don’t know what to do.”

In Sulaimaniya, Kikay said, an agent from the Qadamkher employment agency met them at the airport. He was carrying a gun and was friendly with the police and immigration officials.“They took our passports and then drove us to a house,” she said. “We couldn’t understand what they were saying. We were very scared.” Once there, Kikay said, the women were presented with a contract paying them $200 a month to work in a hotel.

If the women wanted to leave, they say now, they had to pay $2,000 to get their passports back. Cold and hungry, clad only in T-shirts in the winter chill, they signed the contract. As with the Bangladeshis, Kikay says, her wages are about equal to the interest on the loans she took out to come to the region, which she was surprised to learn is part of Iraq.

The local Qadamkher agency rejected allegations that workers were brought here without their knowledge or consent. But several of their contracts specified that foreign workers must pay $100 to $350 for every month left on the contracts if they break them. Most contracts run two or three years.

Sana Muhammad, a Qadamkher employee, said business was growing rapidly. The agency collects a one-time fee of $2,500 from Kurdish families for each domestic worker.“We have requests for 10 Indonesian girls right now that we’re trying to fill,” she added. “We have Ethiopian girls available but clients don’t want them. They say their faces are ugly — the black skin is unfamiliar.” (Similarly, the city cleaning supervisor said the Bangladeshi cleaners had to be moved away from the market because they were being racially harassed.)

Eva Enju is one of the Indonesian women in demand here. This fall, shortly after her 18th birthday, she arrived here believing she had landed in Turkey. She makes $150 a month and has had the good luck to be placed as a maid with Latifah Noori, a kind and funny 75-year-old who is partly paralyzed.“I came here so that I could save money to buy a house,” Ms. Enju explained.Ms. Noori says Ms. Enju has been a godsend, working around the clock without complaint. “Enju has no one here,” she said. “She has just me to serve.”

But Kikay’s situation is less amicable. “My manager has my passport and identification,” she said. “Do you think they will let me leave at the airport without it?” If not, she said, “then I am trapped, and there is no future for me here.”

The Guardian of London is conducting video documentaries up in New Hampshire. And they did a segment on Rudy in which they got a very off-kilter quote about Muslims from a Rudy campaign official in the state. The Guardian identifies him as John Deady, the co-chair of state Veterans for Rudy.

Deady -- and the key here is that he is a Rudy campaign official -- says that Rudy should be our President because he has what it takes to tackle one of our "most difficult problems," which he identifies as the "rise of the Muslims." Deady adds that we need to "chase them back to their caves" or otherwise "get rid of them."

"He's got I believe the knowledge and the judgement to attack one of the most difficult problems in current history and that is the rise of the Muslims, and make no mistake about it, this hasn't happened for a thousand years. These people are very dedicated and they're also very very smart in their own way. We need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves or in other words get rid of them."

Now, it's very clear here that this Rudy campaign official, who hasn't yet returned our call, is talking about the rise of Muslims in general, not about terrorists or Islamofascists or what have you. After all, he says that this problem hasn't happened "for a thousand years."

Also note the reference to chasing them "back to their caves," not to mention the outright call for getting "rid" of them -- them being, again, the Muslims.

Any chance the national press will see this as newsworthy?

The Rudy campaign didn't immediately return a request for comment. You can watch the whole video from The Guardian here.

Honorable Ban Ki MoonSecretary General of the United NationsNew York – U.S.A

As the representatives of the Turkmen nation in Iraq, we regretfully condemn the irresponsible actions of your personal representative to Erbil, Iraq.

We were appalled that Mr. Stephan de Mistura who without paying any attention to the constitutional requirements in Iraq – and obviously by the demand of the Kurdish parties in northern Iraq – suggested to extend the time limit of article 140 of the Iraqi constitution for a further six months.

This article was a temporary article expiring on 31.12.2007 with no right to any body or entity to extend its duration because amendments to constitution requires prescribed conditions such as the acceptance of two third of the members of the parliament and a referendum in whole of Iraq.

We appeal to you to immediately stop these arbitrary actions and procedures. We know that the role of the United Nations is positive and objective and has never been biased and ill informed to the constitutional requirements of its member countries.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders reluctantly are bowing to the fact that the referendum on the future of Kirkuk has to be delayed for six months but face the dilemma of how to sell this to their public.One formula was for the Iraqi Kurdish parliament to approve the delay on condition that the referendum will be delayed six months and if nothing happens at the end of this period the region automatically becomes Kurdish territory.

The issue was being debated in Erbil Wednesday between U.S. Ambassador US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Kurdish regional leader Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq who is also a Kurd. The Kurdish parliament was scheduled to meet after the three end their meetings.

Kurds claimed if the referendum is not held in six months then the results of the 2005 elections should be regarded as a referendum. They say as the Kurds won an overwhelming majority in the polls this would automatically mean the province would become a part of the Kurdish region...

The Unit red Nations proposed a six-month extension to implement Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution in mid-December, despite warnings from Kurdish lawmakers that failure to implement the article would be considered a direct violation of their rights under the constitution.

Article 140 refers to the normalization of Kirkuk, a highly contested multiethnic governorate with a capital city of the same name that contains vast oil reserves. Under the Arabization campaign launched in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein displaced thousands of Kurds and Turkmens from Kirkuk and relocated Shiite Arab families to the area in an effort to change the demographic landscape of the historically Kurdish-majority governorate.

Since the overthrow of the regime, the Kurdistan regional government has pushed for the return of Kurds to Kirkuk and the incorporation of the governorate into the Kurdish region. The transitional administrative law, issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2004, which served as the precursor to the Iraqi constitution, called for a normalization process to be carried out in Kirkuk, allowing Kurds and Turkmens displaced by Hussein to return to Kirkuk and repatriating Arabs back to their hometowns in the south, with compensation. Turkmen leaders say they do not want to be part of the Kurdish region.

Under Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution ratified in late 2005, the Iraqi government must complete the normalization process, hold a census to determine the breakdown of the population according to ethnicity, and hold a referendum on the status of Kirkuk "a date not to exceed the 31st of December 2007."

The new extension allows the Higher Committee for the Implementation of Article 140 and the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission much-needed time to prepare for a referendum in the governorate of Kirkuk that will determine whether the governorate will join the Kurdish autonomous region.

UN Special Representative to Iraq Steffan de Mistura appealed to the Iraqi parliament to accept the delay on December 17, saying the extension would not affect the content of Article 140. "Your reaction should be dictated by reason and not by passion. If not, everyone will suffer the consequences of it," de Mistura told parliamentarians.

Many senior Kurdish officials voiced public support for the extension, saying it was not a reason for concern. Regional Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani told reporters in Al-Najaf on December 17 following a meeting with Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that the extension was a "positive step." Barzani's comments followed a week-long visit to Baghdad that included meetings with senior Iraqi officials including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi on a host of issues, including the issue of Kirkuk.

Iraq's two leading Kurdish parties have invested substantial time and money over the past two years to facilitate the demographic correction, building houses and paying Kurds to move to Kirkuk. The six-month delay will only aid that process thereby contributing to the Kurdish demographic majority, a point not lost on Kirkuk's ethnic Turkmen and Arab minorities.

Turkmens have not enjoyed the same incentives as Kurds to return to their homes.

But some Kurdish leaders contend that the government seeks to renege on the constitutional provision. Kemal Kirkuk, deputy speaker of the Kurdish regional parliament expressed frustration over the six-month extension telling the Kurdish newspaper "Jamaica" that Baghdad obstructed the implementation of Article 140. "My own personal belief is that any delay or extension would not aim at finding a right time for its implementation but to find more excuses and obstacles to prevent implementation forever," Kikukly said in the interview published on December 17. "An extension by six months, ten months, or 100 months will not change this reality," Kirkukly claimed.

Continuing, he argued: "We firmly believe that real obstacles were made to prevent the [Higher Committee for the Implementation of Article 140] from completing its work. It was possible to hold a Kirkuk referendum on time. From 2003 to 2005, it was possible to hold two elections and one referendum [on the constitution] in Iraq. Why was it not possible to hold a referendum [on Kirkuk] from 2003 to 2007, which was limited to only a few specific places in Iraq and not the

whole of Iraq," he asked.

Representatives of the sizable Turkmen and Shiite Arab population in the governorate have said their constituencies have no desire to join the Kurdish region. Many Turkmen and Arabs accused the Kurdish parties of threat and intimidation. The Governorate Council, which ceased to function two years ago, only began to resolve its issues in recent weeks, after the Arab members of the council agreed to end their boycott and return to work on December 4. Turkmen representatives are continuing their boycott.

Turkmen politician Hasan Turhan told the Kurdish website "Rozhnama" in an interview published December 5 that the Kurdish parties have worked to sideline and alienate Turkmens in Kirkuk and other areas of Iraq. Turhan, who is a member of the Turkmen Justice Party and the Iraqi Turkmen Front, holds one of the Turkmens boycotted governorate council seats. He opposes joining the Kurdish autonomous region and says he and his supporters prefer Kirkuk be turned into an independent region jointly administered by Kurdish and Turkmen leaders.

He contended that many Kurds in Kirkuk also support the establishment of an independent region for the governorate.

Turkoman Front leader Ahmet Muratli, the front's representative to Turkey says the delay will only seek to benefit the Kurds. "Kurdish groups have driven Kirkuk into a deadlock with the mistakes they made," he said referring to the political tensions plaguing the city. Muratli contended that the Kurds altered the demographic landscape by bringing 650,000 Kurds to Kirkuk from the Kurdish region and from neighboring countries.

If Kurdish officials felt snubbed by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Kirkuk this week, they tried not to show it. Kurdish media outlets ran reports indicating regional president Mas'ud Barzani refused to meet with Rice because the U.S. had allegedly given Turkey the green light to launch airstrikes on Turkish-Kurdish separatists in the mountains of northern Iraq, which Barzani said led to the death of civilians.

Rice met with local officials during her brief trip to the capital city, but did not hold separate meeting with the KRG, leading some observers to speculate she was sending a message to the Kurds over their designs for Kirkuk. Rice reportedly told local leaders in a closed meeting that the United States supports the UN proposal for a six-month extension and called on local leaders to find a political solution to Kirkuk, Governorate Council member Ahmad al-Askari told the website PUK media. "It is an important province for the future of Iraq, for a democratic Iraq, an Iraq that can be for all people," AP quoted Rice as saying ahead of the meeting.

In a press conference alongside de Mistura on December 18, Rice told reporters that the UN is well-placed "to provide the kind of technical expertise and technical efforts that are needed to help [the people of Kirkuk] move forward." Rice said she was pleased with the UN decision "to help the people [of Kirkuk] to resolve some of the differences that they have there, to look at the questions of the – a way forward so that all Iraqis in the Kirkuk province can feel that they have a future in the new Iraq."

While UN, U.S. and Iraqi leaders have contended the delay in implementing Article 140 is solely due to technical reasons, there is no question that many fear ethnic tensions in Kirkuk could erupt into extreme violence over implementation of the article. Shiite and Sunni Arabs across the country fear the KRG could one day seize Kirkuk's vast oil reserves – which under the constitution are the property of the central government – and declare independence from the rest of Iraq. Ongoing disputes between the KRG and Iraqi Oil Minister Husayn al-Shahristani over Kurdish rights to drill inside the Kurdish region only compound that fear.

Turkey, which supports Kirkuk's ethnic Turkmen population, also fears Kurds would use Kirkuk's wealth to declare independence from Iraq. Moreover, Turks fear, the establishment of a Kurdish state, would likely trigger political instability in Turkey's Kurdish-populated south, which has long-rallied for autonomy from Ankara.

It is probably a puritanical Shiite group, and it says it objects to make-up (tabarruj or the wanton display of oneself in public). The women killed have been for the most part Muslims (both Sunni and Shiite), though two were Christians.

(The above has been posted by Juan Cole on his 'Comments' blog)

What Juan Cole fails to comment is that before the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US-UK in 2003, Iraq was the most progressive country in the Arab world as far as women's rights are concerned.

I also would like to remind him of the crimes the US-UK's 'unpuritanical Christian' troops and their 'Christianist mercenaries' (*) have committed against the women of Iraq: rapes, killings and putting their bodies on fire ...imprisonment without charges, torture, forced displacements... all sorts of humiliations...

Today in 'liberated Iraq' violence on the Iraqi women comes from all sides.

Not to be confused with Iraq Body Count, with its "media and politician-friendly" undercount of Iraqi fatalities, requiring "confirmation" by publication in two different English-language sources.

Leila Fadel reports on one of those uncounted deaths, a report which as far as I can determine appears only on her blog despite the fact that she is the Baghdad bureau chief for a major newspaper chain:

Suheila Hammad held her daughter in her arms before dawn on Tuesday. Outside she heard the U.S. Special Forces and the Iraqi Army in her area just south of Fallujah. First they raided a home two doors down, blew the doors out and went in looking for their target.

The soldiers pulled the family out of the home and the second floor was destroyed, the family said. A picture shows a burned out room and shattered glass.The soldiers progressed to the second house, searching for their target, an Al Qaida in Iraq member who was believed responsible for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

At the second house in this place, once an Al Qaida bastion, they blew the doors off and pulled the residents from the house. The Iraqi soldiers toyed with them, telling them to raise their arms up, drop their arms and raise them again.

A few soldiers walked away speaking a language the families didn't understand. It was then that a bullet pierced the window where Suheila held her daughter Hadil. The bullet pierced Hadil's neck and passed through her, embedding in the wall of the room. No one came into the house and Suheila was too afraid to call out for help, she said.

Hadil bled to death in her mother’s arms. Three men were detained, two were later released. The U.S. military said the man detained is an Al Qaida in Iraq member. There were no reports of Hadil's death, they said.

Having just watched (see post below) "Black and Tans" performing exactly the same kind of brutal assault on civilians in "The Wind that Shakes the Barley," the picture painted by Fadel of this raid was all too vivid in my mind.

Left I at the Movies: "The Wind That Shakes the Barley"

Last night I got to watch a movie that has been touted in progressive circles - "The Wind That Shakes the Barley,"about the struggle in the early 20's to free Ireland from British rule, a subject about which I acknowledge only rudimentary knowledge. The film was difficult to watch, not because it was poorly made, but because of the opposite - because it was so well made, a seemingly realistic portrayal of the very harsh reality of a brutal war.

What is particularly interesting about the movie, and, from reading some reviews, of other movies by director Ken Loach, is its overt thought-provoking nature regarding questions facing all those who struggle for revolutionary change - when to fight and when not, when is a compromise the "best you can get" and when is it a "sell out," is it possible to fight to end an occupation without fighting to institute a new social order at the same time, what do you do when the struggle changes stages and those who were previously on the same side find themselves on opposite sides?

To me, without trying to force the parallel, the Irish struggle in this film, and particularly the struggle within the revolutionary forces, is the struggle between Hamas and Fatah in Palestine, the fight between those in Iraq who have now taken American money to fight for the Americans and those who still fight against the Americans, and no doubt many other examples as well.

Curiously enough, none of the reviews I read (post-viewing) mentioned this timely relevance of the movie, but in one quite interesting review, I found the director himself making the point:

"There is a pattern you see again and again - this kind of manipulation by the ruling power, how different interests will unite in the face of a common oppressor and then ultimately how those contradictions inevitably have to work their way out. I’m sure you can see it in places like Iraq now, where the opposition to the US and Britain brings together a lot of people who will find that they have different interests when the US and the British are finally forced out."

I'm pretty sure that was written by Loach before the creation of the "Awakening Councils" in Iraq, which makes the parallels with the movie even more striking.Two thumbs (all I've got) up.

mercredi 26 décembre 2007

Map from page four of the leaked intelligence report on the battle of Fallujah I. Fallujah is situated 40 miles from Baghdad. The report is classified SECRET/NOFORN. NOFORN means do not share with US allies such as the UK, Australia and Canada. 2031 06 03 is date for declassification after 25 years. X1 specifies that the document is, however, exempt from declassification.

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld launched the failed April 2004 assault on the Iraqi town of Fallujah before marines were ready because it had become "a symbol of resistance that dominated international headlines" and similar considerations eventually destroyed the operation — both according to a highly classified U.S. intelligence report into the defeat.

"During the first week of April, insurgents invited a reporter from Al Jazeera, Ahmed Mansour, and his film crew into Fallujah where they filmed scenes of dead babies from the hospital, presumably killed by Coalition air strikes. Comparisons were made to the Palestinian Intifada. Children were shown bespattered with blood; mothers were shown screaming and mourning day after day."

Coalition air strikes were conducted during the three week cease-fire, which was a "bit of a misnomer" and the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal contributed to the politically driven final peace settlement. The settlement left Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer "furious".

By the end of April, 600-700 Iraqis and 18 marines had been killed inside the town with 62 marines killed in the broader operational area and 565 wounded in action.Fallujah's defenders were diverse but united to oppose the U.S. offensive. They included former regime soldiers, "nationalists, local Islamic extremists, foreign fighters and criminals" together comprising not so much a military organization, but "an evil Rotary club".

The report was penned last year by the U.S Army National Ground Intelligence Center and is classified "SECRET/NOFORN" -- meaning the report was not to be shared with Coalition partners.

The Fallujah assault was initiated when on March 31 2004 four private military personnel from the U.S firm Blackwater were killed in the town and photos of their burnt bodies received international coverage.

The report said the coverage had prompted Rumsfeld, General Abizaid and the then Coalition Provisional Authority Chief Paul Bremer to order an "immediate military response".The report not only blames media driven political pressures for launching the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force before it was ready, but states similar political considerations led to a cease-fire five days later.

The three week official cease-fire was "a bit of a misnomer", with Coalition air strikes continuing and snipers on both sides making movement hazardous. On the town's resistance, the report claims the number one "enemy strategy" was "to gain media attention and sympathy" in-order to push political pressure "to a boiling point."

Contributing to the peace settlement at the end of the month was British opposition to the battle, an Iraqi Shia uprising over the forced closure of the newspaper "al-Hawza" and Abu Ghraib.

Paul Bremer was "furious when he found out about it, but he was in little position to overturn it since he had insisted on the cease-fire in the first place. Complicating matters was the fact that the Abu Ghraib scandal broke on 29 April, consuming the attention of senior leaders in the U.S. government. Bremer could not organize a consensus to overturn the Fallujah decision."

During the battle U.S. psychological operations loud speakers "blasted rock music or taunted the insurgents into attacking with insults about their marksmanship."

Marines used the M1A1 Abrams tank as bait, to lure defenders out into the open, however this ruse didn't work for long as "The enemy.. would initiate an ambush with small-arms fire on one side of a tank in order to get the tank crew to turn its armor in the direction of fire. They would then fire a coordinated 5 or 6 RPG [rocket propelled grenade] salvo into the exposed rear of the tank".

The report states "Approximately 150 air strikes destroyed 75 buildings, including two mosques" and that the operation "stirred up a hornets nest across the Al Anbar provence".

Concluding, the report states "Information operations are increasingly important in a 21st Century world where cable television runs 24 hours a day..the Iraqi government was nascent and weak and they offered no political cover for U.S. commanders to finish the operation in a reasonable time period... Abu Ghurayb.. and the Shia uprising further enflamed a politically precarious situation and could not have happened at a worse time for Coalition forces."

U.S. forces retook Fallujah during November 2004 in what was to be the most bloody battle of the occupation.

Chronology of the Important Events in the World/PKK Chronology (1976-2006)

(Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan- Kurdistan Labor Party)

1976: An attempt of burglary to a private hospital in Ankara. This was the first activity done by pioneers of PKK terrorist organization.

October 27, 1978: PKK terrorist organization performed its founding assembly in Fis; a village of Lice district in Diyarbakir. This assembly as being the first congress; had selected Abdullah Ocalan as the founder leader of the organization. Beginning his studies in the academic circle of Ankara, Ocalan conducted the formation of ideological background and pioneering staff until 1975 and later beginning from 1976 he continued his activities with his friends in eastern and southeastern regions of Turkey. PKK was established in this environment as a Marxist-Leninist organization on October 27th, 1978. PKK terrorist organization adopted in principle a formation of a party, a front and an army.

1979: PKK terrorist organization was made public by means of an inrush to the house of Mehmet Celal Bucak, Member of Parliament from Sanliurfa, with the Party of Justice of the time. In this attack Celal Bucak was wounded and his eight-year-old son lost his life.July 1979: Abdullah Ocalan escaped to Syria via Sanliurfa.November 1979: In order to start guerilla war, Ocalan took a group of his men to Lebanon for training.

April-May 1980: Most of the terrorists that had gone to Lebanon were captured and the others were deported after the military coup on September 12th, 1980

1982: In the congress held in Syria the dissidence within the organization became more evident. Moreover, during this period the theory of forming armed groups were put into practice.

1984: PKK wrapped in a new formation. Abdullah Ocalan said he had chosen Mao’s Public Revolution style and began applying the methods of terror in Southeastern Anatolia. Also, 1984 was the beginning of massive terror attacks against the local people.

Statements of Abdullah Ocalan

· “Let’s kill and become the authority” he said after Pinarcik massacre. (Hasan Cemal, Kurds, p.83).· “We will go down to towns, conflicts will begin. It is not difficult to get on a bus, to get on a plane, the cost is not important. We have thousands of people who will tie bomb to his/her body and will go to die.” (Alparslan Tekin, Last insurrection, p. 139).· “How much action, as much propaganda, agitation; how much activity that much authority.”· “We supported you for two years, provided all kinds of needs. We protected you from every kind of problem and threat. Either you will pay the cost of these or on behalf of PKK your judgment will be as betrayers.” (Ahmet Aydin, Kurds, PKK and Ocalan, p. 83) .· “We became a party by getting out of Ankara. We became an army by setting out to Middle East. We will become a state by setting out to Europe.” He said in 1998 when he was deported from Syria.· “My mother is a Turk. If given a chance, I’m ready to serve the state.”He said after his capture in February 1999.

August 15, 1984: PKK terrorist organization launched an attack to the gendarmerie station building in Eruh district of Siirt and as a result of the armed attack, one gendarmerie soldier lost his life, six soldiers and three civilians were wounded. In addition, another armed attack launched on the gendarmerie open air facility, officer housings and gendarmerie station in Semdinli district of Hakkari. In this attack, one officer, one petty officer and one soldier were wounded. This was the major large-scale armed attack of PKK.August 17, 1984: PKK raided a police station in Siirt.

January 22, 1987: PKK launched a massacre in Ortabag Village of Uludere district in Hakkari and killed eight citizens by putting bombs into a heating stove.January 23, 1987: PKK attacked Midyat and ten citizens were killed.January 27, 1987: PKK changed its strategy and started to target village guards.June 20, 1987: Massacre launched in Pinarcik Village of Omerli district in Mardin. Sixteen children, six women, eight men; in total 30 people were killed. After this massacre Ocalan said “Let’s kill, and become the authority”.

May 9, 1988: Raiding into the Behremin field in Tas Village of Nusaybin district in Mardin terrorists killed eight children, two women; in total eleven people from the same family. Two children were heavily wounded and three people were kidnapped by PKK terrorists in Sirnak, then found dead.1988: (The so-called) Representative of Europe, Huseyin Yildirim in Brussels stated that there were dissidence between him and Abdullah Ocalan.

1989: PKK targeted state forces and struggled for evolving into guerilla level.November 26, 1989: In Iki Yaka village of Yuksekova district in Diyarbakir; 21 people were killed, nine citizens were kidnapped.

March 22, 1990: PKK militants killed nine engineers in Elazig.April 16, 1990: PKK killed five people in Elazig and three of them were teachers.June 11, 1990: PKK raided Cevrimli Village of Sirnak and killed twelve children, women; in total 27 people. The conflict occurred between PKK terrorists and the village guards and in the end four guards lost their lives.

July 14, 1991: PKK terrorists raided on villages in Pazarcik and Caglayancerit districts of Kahramanmaras and killed nine people. Armed with automatic weapons and bombs, terrorists burned the death bodies and fled away.December 25, 1991: A partisan PKK group, marching in Istanbul, threw a molotov-cocktail to the shopping center in Bakirkoy which is owned by the brother of Necati Cetinkaya, the governor of region of emergency, and caused eleven people to die and seventeen to get wounded in the fire.

March 21, 1992: (Newroz Events) PKK terrorist organization tried to direct the local public to a general insurrection by using Newroz festival. This plan of PKK was unfulfilled thanks to the efforts of security forces and common sense.June 11, 1992: In Tatvan -district of Bitlis- PKK terrorists stopped a minibus and executed thirteen persons by shooting.June 27, 1992: PKK terrorists raided Yolac Village of Silvan and took out praying people of the Mosque and executed them by shooting. Ten citizens lost their lives.September 5, 1992: PKK terrorists closed Bingol-Genc highway, and executed seven people.September 15, 1992: In a bomb raid by PKK terrorists to a minibus, near Kozluk district of Batman, 10 people were killed where four of them were village guards and six people wounded.October 1, 1992: PKK terrorists raided Cevizdali Village of Bitlis and killed 30 people. There were women and children among them and 25 were wounded. Terrorists set the village on fire and kidnapped thirteen village guards.November 10, 1992: A local correspondent and nine citizens killed by PKK terrorists in Hani district of DiyarbakirNovember 15, 1992: Ortaalican district of Igdir and Balpinar village of Mardin witnessed the raid of PKK resulted with the deaths of eight citizens and thirteen were wounded.December 07, 1992: PKK ambushed a minibus and killed four citizens. Also twelve were wounded.1992: The US Government declared in the document named “Control Strategy of International Narcotics” that PKK is controlling the narcotics cartel in Europe.

March 20, 1993: Ocalan announced a unilateral so-called ceasefire. While doing this, he aimed to mislead the public opinion about his terrorist image and to reach his goal through legal ways in which he could not be successful with terrorist activities. However, the so called ceasefire was only adopted as a tactic. They never gave up armed activities.June 15, 1993: PKK militants raided to Gozluce Village of Sirvan district in Siirt and Ucpinar Village of Ilicalar subdistrict in Bingol with rockets and killed nine citizens, kidnapped four people. On Siirt-Eruh highway they executed a paramedic by shooting.June 4, 1993: Raiding the villages in Bingol and Hakkari, PKK terrorists killed seven people and kidnapped three women.July 6, 1993: Basbaglar Massacre – PKK made an armed raid Basbaglar village of Kemaliye district in Erzincan and killed 28 people among whom there were women, and wounded three people. Setting 57 houses on fire, terrorists fled away.July 19, 1993: PKK attacked Vanizer village of Bahcesaray district in the city of Van and killed 26 people. 22 of them were womenAugust 4, 1993: PKK terrorists stopped two minibuses on the way between Kavakbasi and Yenidogan Villages of Mutki district in Bitlis and executed 28 people by shooting. In this attack fifteen people were killed and thirteen people were wounded.August 10, 1993: PKK ambushed a minibus in Genc district of Bingol and killed ten passengers. Also ten were wounded.August 29, 1993: PKK kidnapped fourteen people in Kovancilar district of Elazig. Nine of them were killed.September 30, 1993: An arable field of Kozluk district in the city of Batman was ambushed by PKK militants. Seven members of a village guard family were killed, three of them were wounded.October 5, 1993: A series of armed in several arable fields and villages of Batman, Siirt and Hakkari caused the deaths of 35 people (most of them were women and children). Also ten people were in the victims list as wounded and 22 houses were sabotaged.October 25, 1993: PKK terrorists raided on Erzurum’s Cat district in Yavi region and took citizens from their homes and gathered them together in a coffee shop. They propagandized the declarations then killed them with automatic weapons. During the attack 35 people died and nearly 50 people were wounded. Terrorists set the houses on fire and escaped.October 30, 1993: Cicekli village located in the Pasinler district of Erzurum was raided by a large number of PKK terrorists. Six people were killed and thirteen casualties were recorded.

February 12, 1994: As a consequence of the bombs that PKK militants put in a public garbage box in a train station in Tuzla-Istanbul, fıve of corps school reserve officer students lost their lives and one from the public died as well as 29 were wounded.

March 19, 1995: A 50 vehicle convoy going from Tunceli to Ovacik district encountered a rocket attack of PKK terrorists. Eighteen soldiers were killed, ten were wounded.January 01, 1995: Hamzali village located in Kulp district of Diyarbakir was ambushed by a group of terrorists. Five children and four women; in total nine people were killed.August 5, 1995: Akbez of the city Hatay was hit by the rocket launches of PKK. Eight were killed (three children included) and four were wounded.

September 7, 1995: PKK raided to a chrome mine in Samandag district of Hatay and killed nine workers.1995: From this year on, PKK began to apply intensive terror in big cities.

January 16, 1996: Terrorists ambushed a minibus near Taskonak village of Sirnak by rockets. The minibus was burnt with eleven people inside. (seven of them were village guards)June 22, 1996: Broadcasting in Diyarbakir; Soz TV and Altindag Resting Facility in the same building were raided by long barreled weapons. Six people died and fourteen people were wounded in this incident.August 13, 1996: PKK attacked Demriz train station located in Kangal district of Sivas and killed eight people.October 25, 1996: As a result of the suicide attack held in front of the police department in Adana, three police officers, four civilians were killed and fourteen people were wounded in the events.

1998: Ocalan declared a unilateral so-called ceasefire, which particularly resulted from Turkey’s increasing the pressure on Syria.October 9, 1998: Abdullah Ocalan was deported from Syria.November 12, 1998: Abdullah Ocalan aimed to gain the status of a political immigrant by transcribing himself in Rome airport. For one month period he stayed in Italy, he tried to put strain upon European public opinion and official circles by means of these contacts and masses he directed.

February 15, 1999: Abdullah Ocalan was captured in the Embassy of Greece in Kenya while carrying Greek Cypriot passport. The capture of Abdullah Ocalan was a milestone in Turkey’s fight against terror.June 26, 1999: Ocalan was adjudicated from the Article 125 of Turkish Republic Criminal Code. In this case, Ocalan said he was a citizen of the Turkish Republic; he had respect for the State and its Criminal Code and added that his advocacy would be of political not juridical. During this period PKK kept its armed elements in Northern Iraq and trained suicide activists as a protest of Ocalan case. From now on the statement of “we take democratic republic within the framework of the unitary state system” has become more pronounced.September 1999: Abdullah Ocalan wanted the organization to stop its armed attacks in Turkey for a while and wanted it to withdraw from the borders of Turkish Republic. The organization obeyed this decision. Ocalan aimed to ease the anger of the aroused public opinion against him and a possible punishment of death and to be isolated from the organization, which cause him to succeed in his aims. The most important point was to prevent the organization’s finishing itself by putting radical events into action.December 1999: Ocalan attempted to make the best of his opportunity from the Turkey’s EU bid through Helsinki Summit; he tried to realize some of his short term goals by means of Copenhagen criteria, and planned to rest the armed groups on cross-border while gaining benefits from the legal arena with the declarations of cultural rights.

February 2000: PKK trained militants in the Kandil Mountain’s Dola Koge region on the Iran-Iraq border. These militants; unidentified by the security forces, relatively better educated and trained to be under cover in big cities, on the issue of “disobedience” and they gathered under the title of Democratic Working Groups (Turkiye Calısma Gruplari). These members of the organization were the forerunners of civil disobedience.August 2000: Members of “Democratic Working Groups” (Turkiye calısma gruplari) were sent to Turkey but were identified by security units and their activities were prevented before hand. In this direction, more than 70 members of the organization were captured who were trained in Dola Koge camps.

July 2001: Named as “Serhildan Party”; a civil movement was founded in order to activate the militants trained on civil disobedience and increase acts in the name of civil disobedience. Until 2006, although the movement was tried to be continued under different titles and with different groups, the democratization process and developments in Turkey put an end to the civilian disorder and efforts for civil disobedience which is advanced by the terrorist organization.December 27, 2001: The article “Consul’s common view about the application of special sanctions in fighting against terrorism” which was prepared by the EU Council and signed in Brussels on December 27th, 2001, included PKK into the list of terrorist organizations

April 10, 2002: PKK abolished itself on this date and is replaced with KADEK the “so-called” Kurdistan Democratic and Freedom Congress. PKK did not intend a terrorist attack on this date.March 2003: European Court of Human Rights adjudged that there is no unlawful situation in Ocalan’s prison conditions.November 2003: PKK/KONGRA-GEL was established as a new organization model including KADEK and KNK. In the founding manifest, it was stated that “The US with its intervention to Saddam regime played an important role in the dawn of a new era. Saddam subdued all Kurds and all the people. Kongra-Gel, is welcoming this intervention, and designates that, in order to reach positive results; Kurdish issue/problem should be resolved permanently.

January 13, 2004: The US government included PKK and all its units into the terrorist organizations list. (PKK/KADEK/KONGRA-GEL)April 5, 2004: The EU included PKK/KONGRA-GEL into terrorist organizations list on April 5, 2004.June 1, 2004: The traditionalist wing of the terrorist organization who swept out the reformists gave rise to a period of rulership in the so called lead of Murat Karayilan. Ocalan supported the new administration and finished the so called ceasefire on June 1st. Terrorist attacks began before the specified date and intensified day by day and came to city centers from rural areas. New administration adopted the idea that “Political activities not supported by guerillas are not successful”.

July 6, 2005: Hikmet Fidan who worked as the senior general chairman for a long time in HADEP before the party was closed, had meetings with PWD groups in Northern Iraq in order to organize their activities in Turkey. When he was coming back from the meeting in Turkey, in Baglar region in Diyarbakir he was shot to death with a silencer in front of a building in Turkey. Fidan was the coordinator of PWD which was established by Osman Ocalan after he quitted PKK. PWD declared that Fidan had met with PWD elements in Northern Iraq before he was killed by PKK terrorists.July 16, 2005: PKK launched a bomb attack in Kusadasi. Five people including the tourists from Britain and Ireland died and thirteen were wounded.July 17, 2005: PKK’s so-called representative of Austria; Hasan Ozen with pseudonym Yusuf-Salih was killed. Ozen was against of Abdullah Ocalan’s declarations and he wanted to leave the organization.

February 12, 2006: PKK’s former so-called representative of Europe, Kani Yilmaz was killed by a push-button bomb that was put into his car, in Northern Iraq. Yilmaz was burned to death in the car with a former PKK militant Sabri Tori. Yilmaz had escaped from PKK camp in Northern Iraq with Ocalan’s brother Osman Ocalan and established PWD. He had said that PKK had been planning to kill them all. When Ocalan had escaped to Italy and could not get refugee rights, Yilmaz had been accused as a betrayer.March 28, 2006: The funerals of four PKK militants, who were among the fourteen terrorists and were killed during the armed attack of the Turkish security forces on March 25th in Senyayla region which is on the crossroads between Mus and Bingol, were tried to be turned into a provocation by PKK militants. The events spread to other provinces and districts and the chaos was further deepened by the support of majors and governors of the Party for a Democratic Society (DTP) and Roj TV; the broadcasting of PKK terrorist organization. However, the security units prevented the events from intensifying by means of efficient and proper precautions and applications.May 4, 2006: Eight soldiers and eleven students; in total 21 people wounded in school service blast in Hakkari.

August 11, 2006: It was stated that El-Maliki’s government had decided to close all offices of PKK in the capital city of Iraq and all activities of the terrorist organization were prohibited.August 14, 2006: U.K. announced PKK, KADEK and KONGRA-GEL were illegal terrorist organizations and the regulation that prohibits PKK, KADEK and Kongra-Gel was put into force on August 14th, 2006. The regulation that prohibits the organization which is called Kurdistan Freedom Falcons was put into force on July 25th, 2006 by the Kingdom’s Parliament.August 28, 2006: In Marmaris district of Mugla ten British tourists and eleven Turkish citizens were wounded by three explosions. One of them exploded in a minibus, and two others exploded in garbage containers.August 28, 2006: In Antalya, an explosion occurred in front of the trade center of Municipality. Three people died, 20 were wounded including one man heavily wounded.August 28, 2006: The US assigned Joseph Ralston (former senior chief of US general staff-retired air forces general) as the task coordinator in the fight against PKK terrorist organization. September 13, 2006: In Diyarbakir, near Kosuyolu Park, where families go for resting, a bomb exploded. Seventeen people were wounded and eleven lost their lives including a baby.